'Brain' doctor coming to Barre Opera House
Toolbox
By Mel Huff Times Argus Staff - Published: January 14, 2008
BARRE – Joe Dispenza, author of "Evolve Your Brain" and featured speaker in the docudrama "What the Bleep Do We Know?" will speak at the Barre Opera House this month about how people can change their lives by changing their minds – specifically, by changing their brain's physiology.
Dispenza studied biochemistry at Rutgers University, received a doctorate in chiropractic at Life University in Atlanta and has subsequently attended seminars on brain chemistry, brain imagining, neurology, neurophysiology, memory formation and related subjects. He has studied and taught at Ramtha's School of Enlightenment in Washington State. His interests include quantum physics, consciousness, the mind-body connection and spontaneous recoveries.
Dispenza asserts that most of the time, our brains are reacting to people, things and events in our environment, activating the same circuits over and over again. But he contends that it is possible, with focused concentration, to allow new circuits to form, and for the brain to develop new patterns. That means it is possible to make permanent changes in the self that result in a different reality.
Dispenza's visit is being sponsored by Amy Miller, a psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice in Middlesex and Barre.
In the first part of the presentation, Dispenza will talk about his own experience of the mind-body connection as he recovered from a serious accident: His back was broken when he was hit by a car while riding his bike.
In the second part, he will discuss "the four coincidences" – four common ways of thinking shared by people who have had spontaneous recoveries from physical and emotional illnesses. Dispenza discovered the commonalities in traveling around the world and interviewing people who had had spontaneous recoveries, Miller said.
(The first of the coincidences is the conviction that an innate higher intelligence gives us life and can heal the body. The second is that thought are real and can directly affect the body. The third is that we can reinvent ourselves. And the fourth, Miller said, is that we are capable of paying attention so well that we can lose track of relative space and time.)
In the final part of his presentation, Dispenza will teach people how to rewire their brains and, Miller said. There will be time for questions and answers following the presentation.
Dispenza's program will be filmed for Miller's CVTC show "Connect With Amy Miller." Six segments of the show aired in Barre this fall, and the entire series will play in Montpelier, Burlington and Plattsburg, N.Y., later this year.
Miller became aware of Dispenza when someone suggested she see "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and she credits reading "Evolve Your Brain" with helping her change her own life.
Miller met Dispenza at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, began corresponding with him and invited him to speak in Central Vermont. "I just think it's such an important and useful message that everybody should know it," she explained. In order to make his information available to more people, Miller asked Dispenza – and he agreed – to lower the price of the tickets by more than half, to $15.
Miller, who is trained as an advance practice nurse, moved to Vermont in 1998 when she was recruited as the first psychiatric nurse practitioner at Washington County Mental Health. While she was there, she created the first holistic program in the country for the persistently mentally ill: In addition to social and medical support, patients were offered acupuncture, massage, Reiki and therapeutic touch.
In 2001, Miller started working on a Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a decision that she says "exacerbated a spiritual crisis."
She realized that she didn't want to be doing research; what she really wanted to do was to continue her practice and learn to be better at it. She withdrew from the academic program and started a two-year apprenticeship in mind-body healing with Sandy Morningstar, a 70-year-old clinical psychologist with Native American roots who lives in Duxbury.
"My goal is to empower people to learn how to heal themselves," Miller said, observing that when ancient healing traditions are added to modern medicine, "Amazing things happen."
Miller organized the speaking event so that others could also benefit from Dispenza's knowledge. "This work is my passion," she declared. "It's all about helping people find their power and being as independent as they can be, and as knowledgeable as they can be on how to heal and how to take care of themselves.
"Maybe it's an alternative to the health care crisis," she added.
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